MongoHQ scrambles to address major database hack

Database hosting service MongoHQ suffered a considerable security breach on Monday, in which users' e-mail addresses, hashed password data, and other account information was exposed to hackers.

"We detected unauthorized access to an internal support application using a password that was shared with a compromised personal account," MongoHQ co-founder Jason McCay wrote in a blog post. "In handling security incidents, MongoHQ's priorities are to halt the attack, eliminate the control failures that allowed the attack to occur, and to report the incident candidly and accurately to our customers."

Re: MongoHQ scrambles to address major database hack

Thanks for posting this story, PIInfinity! It looks like MongoHQ posted an update on the breach on October 31st, but there haven't been any new updates since.

Here's part of the update from the MongoHQ/security page:

We have additional details on the scope of access to customer data, including start dates. Customer data was accessed in two ways:

Through our web UI (impersonated accounts): We have comprehensive web activity logs and have identified instances of third party access to some customer accounts.

Direct database access: The attackers were able to use the impersonation feature to access the MongoHQ accounts database, and used connection information to access some customer databases directly. Our logs indicate third party access to these databases beginning on October 27th, 2013.